


History Rewritten

by NaomiPhoenix



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Jedi Temple, M/M, Pieder - Freeform, Pining, grown ups in their younger bodies, halls of healing, talk of death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-07 20:45:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12849180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaomiPhoenix/pseuds/NaomiPhoenix
Summary: What if you died and woke up in the past?





	1. Waking up

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Star Wars and never will, but gosh-darn-it, these characters are fun to play with ;D

_The Executor was rocked hard by a close and large explosion which threatened to knock many off their feet. But no-one did lose their footing._  
  
"Sir! We've lost our bridge deflector shields," an officer called up to him.  
  
"Intensify the forward batteries. I don't want anything to get through," he ordered firmly. But too late. Beside him Captain Kallic pointed to a foreign object, a Rebel A-wing, on fire and out-of-control, and heading straight towards them, and at great speed. "Increase forward fire power!" he bellowed, but he knew it was . . .  
  
"Too late!" the captain beside him cried and began to run. Piett started after him about half-a-second later.  
  
Half-a-second too slow.  
  
Firmus Piett remembered the cries of his crew, and his own cries. He felt his body hit the sunken floor of the crew pit he'd jumped into. He recalled the ringing in his ears from the force and noise of the explosion, the smells of burning and the feel of fire.  
  
But as he found himself opening his eyes in a dark and quiet room, safely tucked up in bed, he could for a moment believe it to have all been a bad dream.  
  
It was not until someone above him coughed, that he realised, no _remembered_ where he was. In the cadets dorm at the Axxilan Naval Academy. In the dim light he could see the other bunks and familiar silhouettes he had not seen or thought about in decades. Cato Dessal was asleep on the bottom bunk to his left. He started working as a mercenary after graduation - and was dead at twenty-three. No-one slept above him. Magnus Fayar was on his right. He had failed to graduate - ended up a drug addict and dead in an alley about a decade from now. Magnus Koda slept on the bunk above Fayar. He was the illegitimate son of a powerful drug lord - a plant. Just a few months before the Axxilan Antipirate Fleet had been merged with the Imperial Navy Piett had seen them both jailed for life. Above Piett himself slept Felix Varm. His lungs had never been good bit the man himself was brilliant and one of the few honest men he knew come from Axxila. He, like Firmus, had gotten off of Axxila; made something of himself. Hell, Piett wasn’t ashamed to say Felix had done better - he had married well, and he and his wife had four children.  
  
Except none of it had happened, had it? Piett remembered it, so it must have. But it did not explain how he had come to move through space and time, to his youth. How he could go from death - he was sure he was dead, it had felt like he had died - to a time in his youth? Could this be some sort of afterlife? Piett had to wonder what he’d done in life for his afterlife to appear as this part of his life.  
  
But there was something else which made better sense, if anything could make sense of this at all. The Force, the great and limitless power which was wielded by Lord Vader. It had done this. Or maybe Lord Vader had used its infinite power to do so, though the latter seemed unlikely. Lord Vader had been delivering Luke Skywalker to the Emperor on the second Death Star. Or presenting his son to the Emperor, depending on one’s point-of-view.  
  
So the Force it had to have been. But why him? And why here and now, if this wasn’t the afterlife. He’d come and gone from this place in his teens, as a _child._ Pfassk, he really hoped he wasn’t adolescent again.  
  
Finally drawing his sore, tired eyes from the underside of Felix’s bunk he moved to sit up. While he felt bone-weary and hungry like he hadn’t felt in years, there was no dull ache in his lower back or creaking in his knees. He felt awkward, like his body wasn’t quite right and dizzy because his brain couldn’t quiet compensate for the sudden difference. Poodoo! There was no escaping it; he was practically a child again. He knew the Force could do unpleasant things but kriffing hell, this was damned cruel, afterlife or not.  
  
Reaching for his throat, he checked for his pulse, and found it, beating strong albeit, a little fast Piett couldn’t decide whether it was a comfort or not. But he needed to put it aside for now, and work out when he was. And then after that, why this time.  
  
He knew subconsciously, being back in his youth, the calendar would still be Galactic Standard but seeing it, really seeing it, brought it all into stomach turning reality. Only years of discipline and starvation, kept him from vomiting bile.  
  
He was sixteen. In just months, even weeks, the Clone Wars would begin. The Emperor was still Supreme Chancellor and Darth Vader was still Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight and soon-to-be General in the Grand Army of the Republic. Lord Vader would be twenty, at the most. Years away from receiving the injuries which put him in that dreadful suit; which left him with the scars Piett had once glimpsed. Piett had a vague recollection of a tall, gallant-looking, lightsaber-wielding knight, with a handsome countenance which often appeared on the holonet, even so far away from the Core as Axxila.  
  
Somehow, Piett was going to have to make his way there, to the Imperial Centre. No, it was still Coruscant at this point in time. It would be for some years yet. Still, he couldn’t stay here. There was no logical reason to stay. It was not as though he needed the schooling, and . . . The realisation hit him with almost the same force which had ended his life.  
  
His parents were still alive. His mother was only at the beginning of her illness, and though his father was struggling at times, his grocer business had yet to go under.  
  
For a moment, and only a moment Piett struggled to decide what his next move should be. Laying sentimentality aside, it made no sense to stay; not with what he knew. He needed to find someone with the power to do something with his future knowledge and there was only one person he could think of who could do that - Anakin Skywalker. It was a risky assumption, he knew that but if there was one being in all the galaxy who would know instinctively he was telling the truth, it was the Jedi who would one day be Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith. How to go about contacting him was something else. He couldn’t just call the Jedi temple on Coruscant and hope to be put through, and he didn’t have any magical Force powers to try and reach him that way, if it were even possible, so there was only one option - he would have to go to the temple and hope that the Force provided. Perhaps the ability to discern the honesty of a beings words was a common trait amongst the Jedi Order.  
  
It took hours and it was too near morning hours for comfort, by the time Piett had organised himself. Though slicing was simple enough when one knew all the flaws, or knew the full detail, hiding his activity took time. Hitting just one was too risky. It could too easily ignite another violent, world-wide gang war. Hitting all of them, at least all the major ones would leave them scratching their collective heads as to how it could have been done, and who’d have the choobies to do it. So he plundered them all, laundered them through all of their own and their rivals shell company accounts and then funnelled them all into newly created Core world bank accounts and out of their reach.  
  
He made it to an alley just outside the academy and was changing from his night clothes into civilian wear when the morning alarm sounded. By the time he might have been missed and someone might be considering looking for him, he was slicing into a private hanger where a clean ship, belonging to Koda’s father, and just needing to be registered, waited. One which Piett registered under his own name, just before he signed off the computer - under the name ‘The Lady Ex’.  
  
She wasn’t anywhere near the size of her predecessor, _or was it postdecessor_ , but The Lady Ex was still a thing of beauty a small warship disguised as a luxury vessel. One able to be piloted alone. And once in hyperspace, a pilot wasn't needed at all.  
  
The exceptionable circumstance of having nothing to do grew tedious within minutes. In hindsight, boredom could be the only reasonable excuse for his concern about how he would present himself, and how he went about doing it; with the ‘seized’ finances.


	2. Arrival at the Jedi Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coruscant - and the Jedi Temple.

Firmus Piett had never travelled to the ecumenopolis of Coruscant before it had well and truly been reshaped into the Imperial Centre. In orbit the differences has been subtle but once on the surface he felt he was at great risk of becoming lost. Many of its recognisable landmarks had yet to come into existence. The Royal Apartment Building was the only obvious landmark at first sight, currently known as 500 Republics, and located in the Federal District rather that the Imperial District. It was located as luck would have it, very near the private hanger he had secured, where delivery droids waited with his orders to hand.  
  
In one package were several ‘uniforms’, in a part-militaristic/part-formal cut, they were all which was available in his preferred style, which could be made ready to meet him upon his arrival. The material they were made from had armour-like properties. Something he’s always believed officers should have had available to them. How many officers were killed in the field for lack of armour, while Stormtroopers survived but were left without leadership? While armour vests were available, they were not compulsory, were ridiculously uncomfortable, hard to move in, and who was the fool who thought Officers only ever got shot in the chest? Only Max Veers could stand to wear them, but then again he liked his ridiculous helmet too, the idiot dirt-pounder.  
  
Sith Hells, if Piett was only sixteen, that would make Max twenty-five. Force help him if Maximillian Veers had been sent back too, he’d never let Piett hear the end of it.  
  
Refocusing on his priorities, Piett checked his concealed blasters and vibroblades well and truly coveted away, he pocketed two datapads and started on his way towards the Jedi temple. Without the Naval Intelligence Headquarters and the massive COMPNOR arcology which made up the Supreme Triangle of the Imperial City's Federal District ¹, the area seemed bare. In place of the Courtyard Landing Field were a series of small parks, each with their own statues, and a long road which lead up to a ceremonial staircase called Processional Way ². Crisscrossing the road and parks were groups of tourists, following guides, while being educated about the Temple Precinct. No one questioned it when he joined a group. Had he come just a few weeks from now it would not have been so easy. Tourists would have likely been kept away while the Jedi went to war.  
  
The difference in the buildings was almost startling. What remained in the future of the massive ziggurat temple was its quincunx of skyscraping spires, which crowned an amalgam of blockish edifices with sloping façades ³. The entrance was crowned by four statues, two Warrior Masters, and two Sage Masters ⁴, and twelve massive pylons adorned with depictions of the temples founding four Masters ⁵, the guide informed them as they drew closer.  
  
As Piett had kept to the back of the tour group, his separation from them went as unnoticed by them as his addition to their number had. But he had not gone so completely unnoticed by others. Jedi Temple Guards, as faceless and uniform as any Stormtrooper didn’t miss his ascension of the ceremonial staircase, and their efficiency in reaching him was impressive. And most definitely Force-enhanced. Each drew forth double-ended lightsabers, which, when ignited, produced yellow blades, kept him from continuing.  
  
They did not faze him, and he made certain they could see and sense so. “I am Admiral Firmus Piett,” he began. “Just over two days ago I died - only to wake up as my younger self. As it is hardly a natural sequence of events, I felt it was necessary I speak to someone with an understanding of the supernatural,” he informed them, then added, “Anakin Skywalker specifically, if he is available.”  
The four figures who had him surrounded were so eerily still for such a long time they might have been mistaken for additional statues. Suddenly one stepped away and for some time spoke just out of hearing range on a wrist-comm. At the same time, at the bottom of the stairs, tourists began to gather as they began to take a keen interest in the proceedings. ‘ _Too public_ ’. Piett mentally kicked himself for being in such a hurry and not considering the time of day.  
  
“You will follow and you will not stray.” The temple guard who returned, just as quickly as they has stalled his progress, the other three moved away to disperse the crowd of onlookers.  
  
The entrance hall was an elevated walkway down the centre of an even great hall. Cavernous didn’t come anywhere close to describing its gargantuan size. Though he had worked with Wilhuff Tarkin, Piett had never been involved with the Death Star project, but he imagines the size of this place might put even its hangers to shame.  
  
Once it had become the Imperial Palace this entrance hall had been walled off on either side, concealing the cast spaces. And it had been renovated to a pitiless black and blood red; dark and unforgiving. Here and now, with the Jedi, it was warm and full of life; decorated in blue and bronze with touches of charcoal grey and silver about the base of each pillar. And the pillars had seats, each and every one of them. Something else which had come to be removed.  
  
Light poured through clear and stain-glass windows and there were even more statues, some positively colossal in height. As he followed the temple guard further in, Piett noted mosaics, tapestries and paintings and could help but think their fate had be similar to those who lived amongst them.  
  
They walked the full length of the hall before reaching a turbolift, and once they could go no higher in it, removed to another, which delivered them to an even greater height. Piett discerned, he was being taken to one of the quincunx towers.  
  
Waiting outside the doors of the second turbolift was a human male Jedi, of slightly lower than average height, with bright blue eyes, a full but tidy beard and shoulder-length red hair. They _exchanged_ him without a word being spoken between them.  
  
“You are Firmus Piett?” the Jedi asked.  
  
“Admiral Firmus Piett,” he answered. He received a doubtful look from the other but he paid it no mind. This Jedi had yet to hear his story; he was being too quick to judge. But if their places were switched, Piett knew he would be the one showing obvious doubt.  
  
“I am Knight Kenobi. I . . .”  
  
Piett interrupted. “Obi-wan Kenobi?” What were the chances? High, it appeared.  
  
“Yes,” Kenobi answered slowly. “Might I ask how you know my name?”  
  
“You were my L- . . . you were Anakin Skywalker’s Jedi master.”  
  
“I think you’ll rather find that I am _currently_ his Jedi master,” Kenobi corrected him.  
  
So this was Kenobi. And here he was, the first person to meet with Piett inside the temple. Clearly he’d been waiting for him, “Something has happened to him as well?” It was as much a thought as it was a question.  
  
“There has been an _incident_ , yes. Around the same time you claim something happened to you,” Kenobi watched him closely as he answered.  
  
Had Lord Vader been sent back too? Was he the cause of Piett’s strange, supernatural situation after all? Or had Lord Vader died and been returned to an earlier time by the Force as well? There were too many questions and Piett needed answers. “May I see him?”  
  
"That is for the Council to decide. They’re gathered to meet you now.” Kenobi gestured to grand double doors.  
  
“Very well.”  
  
Had Firmus Piett served under any other commander, he might have feared to be the one non-Force sensitive in a room with thirteen Jedi, but was not. He only wondered: how many met their demise at his masters’ hands? How many might again?  
  
“Masters. This is _Admiral_ Firmus Piett.” Piett ignored Kenobi’s tone and, after he had followed Kenobi’s lead and bowed to greet the Jedi Council, he took a stance which was unmistakeably military.  
  
“Admiral? Of what navy?” a Cerean questioned.  
  
“One yet to come into existence,” he answered obtusely.  
  
“Perhaps of the military the senate will soon vote on,” a bald human male of dark complexion surmised.  
  
“No,” he responded curtly, “I have never served the Galactic Republic.” And Force-willing, he never will. “Master Jedi, I understand you have questions and concerns, but until I can discern for myself what has happened to Lor-, to Anakin Skywalker, I do not feel I can answer them.”  
  
“Know him by another name, do you?” a small, green master, of an unknown species, asked.  
  
“I do. Again, I will not elaborate until I have spoken to him.” He would not allow them to bring Darth Vader's wrath down upon him.  
  
“Why?” a female Tholothian inquired.  
  
“I will not answer personal questions regarding him, without his consent.” Ha! Let them try and argue with that.  
  
The room was quiet for a time, and amongst the silence, Piett could almost hear the rhythmic breathing of a mechanical respirator, and he was oddly calm; the calmest and most at ease he’d felt since he had woken up to this abnormal circumstances.  
  
The small green master and the bald one eventually turned to not quite look at one-another before the bald one nodded.  
  
“Permit you to see young Skywalker, we do. But answers we expect, in the near future, we do also.”  
  
“Kenobi will take you to see his Padawan.” The bald one made a small gesture of dismissal.  
  
Finding himself once more in a turbolift, Piett still found himself still the centre of attention. “If you have a question, Master Jedi, you are welcome to ask it. But I cannot promise to answer it,” he offered.  
  
“How do you know my Padawan?”  
  
“We serve together.”  
  
“In this navy which does not exist yet?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And what capacity does - did -ah,” Kenobi stumbled verbally.  
  
“Using either past tense is alright under the circumstances, Master Kenobi.” Conversation promised to become confusing fast if tenses were to become mixed. At least it would to anyone listening, which Piett was certain was or would soon happen.  
  
“Indeed. In what capacity _did_ he serve in this navy with you?”  
  
“Perhaps it is better to have him answer that.” If he is willing to. If he doesn’t slaughter everyone here again _or_ simply walk out. Piett shook his head a little to clear his thoughts. It would do no good to dwell on maybe’s and what if’s. Nothing was certain anymore and, as frightening a-concept as that was - there was something he had just thought of that was far worse. They could have woken up to find themselves in the future, facing completely alien circumstances with future technology and utter ignorance. The thought caused him to visibly shiver.  
  
“Are you well?”  
  
“I just realised how much worse this situation could be,” he replied.  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Could have woken up decades in the future, rather than the past,” he elaborated. The turbolift announcing that has arrived at the Halls of Healing interrupted Kenobi’s response.  
  
Warm sunlight bathed blue-green floors and walls creating a soothing atmosphere ⁶. Pillars of pink stone soared into the ceiling ⁷. Kenobi led him through a small doorway into a single patient room. More warn sunlight poured into the room through a large window, and there was a figure silhouetted by the light. Piett almost missed the other being in the room, a Mon Calamari.  
  
“Obi-wan,” the Healer, Piett presumed, said. “There’s been no change still-.” Whatever else was said was drowned out by a hum in Piett’s ears.  
  
This was Lord Vader; young and whole, and unscarred. This was him, unmistakable him. The way he stood in front of the window, hands clasped behind his back, was exactly the same way he stood in front of the windows on the Executor’s bridge.  
  
The sun highlighted a headful of dark blond hair, most of it cropped to an equal length, but for a short bantha tail at the back and a long braid behind his right ear. It even has a hint of a wave to it.  
  
He was bare to the hips. Dressed only in loose-fitting, threadbare hospital pyjama pants, which sat low on his hips. His skin, oh! What a difference there was between this sun-kissed gold and the deathly pale he had once glimpsed. And to see it lain over strong arms and broad shoulders; over sharply defined hips and a narrow waist; over a strong back, Piett desperately wanted to reach out and touch but dared not to.  
  
“How long has he been like this?” he asked, hardly noticing he’d broken onto their whispered conversation.  
  
“Since the second time he woke up, after the, well,” the Healer began to answer.  
  
Kenobi continued, “There was a - we’ve taken to calling it a Force-storm. We all felt it here and so did others off-world. Anakin was at the centre. It went on for hours and utterly trashed his bedroom. When we were finally able to get to him, he was unconscious and unresponsive. And then a day ago, he was left alone for a few minutes and during that time he woke up and has been at the window ever since.”  
  
“I simply woke up. It was a little confusing. Once I thought about it, I realised the Force could be the only thing which could have done something so supernatural and came looking for the only Force-user I know.”  
  
“Sensible,” commented Kenobi.  
  
“What do you mean exactly?” asked the Healer.  
  
“I died and woke up, sixteen years old again.”  
  
“Dead? And woke up what? Back in time?” the Healer sounded incredulous. “You think this happened to Padawan Skywalker too?”  
  
Kenobi shrugged. “We have no better explanation.”  
  
“But time-travelling back from the point of death?!”  
  
“It goes some way towards explaining why the Force felt and did what it did,” Kenobi mused.  
  
“I - suppose,” she replied, distracted by her thoughts. “No, it does. Master Windu did say it was as though a shatterpoint had exploded rather than simply shattering. He shouldn’t be out of bed either,” she continued. “Experiencing an exploding shatterpoint that way he did, should have killed him. But I suppose he was in the council chamber meeting our visitor with the others,” she sighed.  
  
Kenobi answered, “He was.”  
  
“Damned fool. He was only bleeding out of his eyes, nose and ears. But he knows better than little old me. He is _the_ Head of the Order. I’m just a lowly healer.”  
  
“Bant,” Kenobi said with clear disapproval.  
  
She waved him off. “So do you think you can rouse our patient?” She said it like she was challenging him. “Because I haven’t seen him so much as twitch since you came in.”  
  
He didn’t deign to rise to the challenge. “Can I have the room, please?”  
  
The Jedi looked at each other, “I’m not sure that’s wise,” Kenobi replied.  
  
“I am aware of the risk, Master Kenobi. But you must understand, the things I will speak about - are highly sensitive, even dangerous information.”  
  
“Do you really think you can snap him out of this?” Snap wasn’t the greatest word choice but Kenobi didn’t know better.  
  
“I can only try.”  
  
“Well, I’m sure your hospital room can’t have changed so much from now to whenever you’re from, so you should know which button will bring us running or get our attention?” the Healer said.  
  
He nodded, and until they had left the room, made no further action.  
  
His master stood like a golden god in front of him, and he hesitated. He was likely damned if he didn’t approach him, and equally damned if he did. So straightened his jacket and strode over, praying his voice would not fail him, and that his instincts were right, "My Lord."  
  
"Report Admiral."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Palace
> 
> 6, 7 - starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Halls_of_Healing


	3. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piett helps Lord Vader to realise . . . he's still alive

Two words! He had spoken two words and it felt as though the A-wing was crashing into the bridge all over again, and yet it felt like a victory as well, because clearly the Jedi had gotten nothing. Two words, and was that an Outer Rim accent? There was power in his voice, even without his vocoder, it held the power to command loyalty but there was a refreshing gentleness too.   
  
Piett couldn't allow himself to be distracted by it. Just because he'd gotten him to speak, didn't mean he had drawn Lord Vader out of whatever he was in. The response had been automatic. Armoured or not, Piett recognised certain subtleties in his master's body language. He might be present in body, but his mind was elsewhere.  
  
He began his report from their last point of contact; from the capture of Luke Skywalker, without mentioning the young man’s name, or status as a Jedi; Piett referred to him only as 'the Pilot'. He related the movements of the Rebel forces, and recalled the orders he had personally received from the Emperor himself. Again being careful not to mention too many details, such as names or places, before reaching the loss of the Executor's bridge shield, and the crash which had caused his death. Then finally, Piett related to Lord Vader the story of his awakening back in time, and the process and choices which bought him to the here and now.  
  
It wasn’t a short report, though Piett kept it as concise as possible, as Lord Vader preferred. But the passing of time allowed his words to reach his audience, and to move him. It was subtle at first, but there was a change in how Lord Vader blinked. Not a blinking to keep dead eyes moist, but because something had been stirred within. A change in his breathing followed. It was a wondrous thing, to see his master breathing on his own, and to see the rise and fall of his strong chest and toned abdomen. Then finally his stoic countenance broke, shifting to a quizzical expression. Blue eyes shimmered as life returned to them and the full lips of a pretty mouth parted with a gasp as Lord Vader turned to look at Piett, to _really see him_ for the first time.  
  
Realisation dawned on his face as bright as the sunlight which gave him a halo-like aura. Then, as if a cloud passed between them, it began to fade. For some reason Lord Vader could not be so accepting of their situation as Piett. As the light slipped further and further away, Piett made a desperate choice. With trembling hands, his took one of Lord Vader’s flesh and blood hands in his own and brought it to his throat, and pressed two of his masters’ fingers against his racing pulse. His touch was warm, and at even arm’s length, Piett could feel his body heat radiating like a furnace, so different from the cooler atmosphere which use to follow him before. Piett’s breath caught when the fingers twitched, pressing deeper on their own accord, chasing the hearts beat. Lord Vader’s thumb pressed firmer too, on the other side of his throat.   
  
“M-my Lord, my master. Please,” Piett said gently, when he found his voice to speak once more.  
  
Lord Vader’s head tilted thoughtfully to one side. Being able to see his thoughts play out via expressions was so wonderfully new and different. He was so delightfully expressive. His face so beautiful, it was like looking at a work of art. One which moved closer. “You think of me as your master?” Sith Hells, those exquisite blue eyes were dilated, and there was still some life left in them. Piett dared only to gaze at them through his own lashes.  
  
"Since the day you brought me to you to serve you?" Piett confessed breathlessly.  
  
Lord Vader’s other hand moved to press his chin up to better look into his eyes, “How long, Admiral? How long have you felt this way towards me?”  
  
“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” Oh, Sith Hells again, had he just quoted . . . He smiled at his own absurdity. To have quoted such a _romantic,_ and classical piece of literature to Lord Vader. He blushed.  
  
“I thought if I never saw the colour red again, I might be happy. It seems I was wrong.” Lord Vader’s fingertips brushed over Piett’s hot cheeks.  
  
What a strange thing to say. “My Lord? I don’t understand.”  
  
"The lenses were red. Everything was tainted with red. To see colours again, is as blinding as it is hypnotising."  
  
Oh, how Piett wanted to stay like this, with his master stood so close to him, touching him but it was simply not logical. He had to help Lord Vader to understand their unconventional circumstances.  
  
“And do you recognise where we are?” Lord Vader’s brow furrowed a little. He did not draw away immediately, as though he did not want to move his hands from Piett, or perhaps Piett could have been imagining it.  
  
When Lord Vader finally moved away, it was to the window again. “This is Coruscant, as I remember it,” he answered. “Before the Clone Wars.”  
  
“Just a few weeks before it begins, my Lord.”  
  
“Admiral, the Clone Wars are long over. I don’t know exactly why we are seeing this, but . . .”  
  
How was Piett meant to get him to understand, this all was as real as his living pulse? “My Lord, forgive me for interrupting but _where_ do you think we are?”  
  
“Some sort of purgatory, I suspect.”  
  
Piett took his hand again pressing it back to his pulse and placed his own hand over Lord Vader’s beating heart. “Does this feel as though either of us are dead, my Lord? Would our hearts beat or our lungs draw breath if we were truly deceased?” Lord Vader’s slipping into lifelessness was his way of accepting he was dead. He’d been at peace with it, and now Piett was ruining it for him. But this was for the best, Piett told himself, over and over. The war would start soon; did he really want to wait until then for Lord Vader to realise that this was really happening? As much as it hurt, his master wouldn’t want that. Piett surprised himself with how passionately he spoke, “You always know when someone is lying. Am I lying now when I say that we are alive? Because we are alive. And we’ve been sent back in time, a few weeks before the Clone Wars begin.” Time, such a precious thing, something beings would sacrifice much for and pay a heavy price to have more of - and they had been gifted with decades.  
  
Finally, _finally_ , his master realised where he was.


	4. Awakening Part 2

Firmus Piett never imagined to feel any heart but his own skip a beat, but it was hard to miss it when his master’s did, just beneath his palm, before it began to race. Lord Vader’s chest began to rise and fall faster, and his skin became cool and pale. He staggered where he stood.  
  
Lord Vader was going into shock or at least it had all the appearance of shock, and Piett was left with an uncomfortable choice - deal with it himself, which he only knew how to do in theory, or call for help from the Jedi. Now was no time for the latter.  
  
Piett silently prayed for them to continue to stay away, just for a little longer as he helped Lord Vader into a nearby seat and grabbed a blanket to wrap around his shoulders, before he knelt at his master’s feet.  
  
“I need to get you out of here, away from the Jedi, but I don’t know how. There’s so many of them, I fear we would not get very far, my Lord,” he said quietly.  
  
“I thought they were ghosts come to haunt me. Force knows I deserve it.” The most powerful man Piett knew staggered. “I was so caught up in myself, in my own mind, my own thoughts and misery, I ignored them. I ignored reality. Anything could have happened.”  
  
“They are real, my Lord. And as alive as you and I,” he told him. “And they want answers.”  
  
“I remember dying.” Pfassk, he was still at risk of dissociating again. Piett had to wonder if Lord Vader had suffered some sort of wound to the mind because of what the Force had done. Blast! He felt he was being pushed to make so many assumptions. So far he had been somewhat successful but he didn’t like it one bit. With every assumption he ran the risk of making a mistake. But he had seen something like this before, on soldiers who had suffered from severe mental strain. His gut told him it was okay to keep going with taking chances, for now, as uncomfortable as it was for him to do. Being that Lord Vader was once, many years from now, the second-most highly ranked being in the Empire, perhaps it was all finally catching up to him. Or perhaps it was . . . perhaps he just needed to talk about his death.  
  
“How did you die, my Lord?”  
  
"Luke held true to his beliefs and refused to fall, so the Emperor declared he would die. And then he began to carry out the sentence. He - he used Force lightning, he was torturing him and - I couldn't just stand by and watch him die. The throne room was built with a wide opening, exposing the shaft which lead right down to the core of battlestation. We were so close to the edge, I threw him down it. The lightning shorted out my life-support."  
  
He had sacrificed himself for his son. Damn it if Max wouldn't have done the same thing for his rebellious son too, even though he had claimed to have disowned Zevulon. But wait, did he say . . . "You cast him down, literally?! Down a shaft?!" It was _utterly hilarious_. He envisioned Lord Vader picking the Emperor up - did he lift him over his head? - and throwing him down some big old shaft of some half-constructed battlestation. It was such a completely ridiculous way for his master to have killed the Emperor.  
  
Piett burst out laughing.  
  
And to his surprise, and delight, for it was a beautiful sound, Lord Vader joined him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me for backtracking but I decided to keep going as is rather than rewriting. All my TLJ fever is currently being poured into a post-TLJ story, Future Rewritten.
> 
> I will try to update both stories steadily

It echoed down the hall and drew attention. And it sped on Kenobi’s return. “Anakin! You’ve had me worried sick, my Padawan,” he all but blurted. “You’ve been unresponsive for two days. What happened?”  
  
Piett rose to his feet to place himself between them, his posture defensive.  
  
“It's alright, Admiral. I believe you. And I believe the Force has blessed us with a second chance.” As though Lord Vader had done so many time before, he reached out to squeeze Piett’s hand reassuringly. The shock was already wearing off. He was warmer to the touch then a moment ago.  
  
In kind, Piett held onto it, and brought it to his lips to kiss it reverently. “My Lord.” For a moment he dreaded Kenobi had heard him, even though he spoke it in a low voice.  
  
No questions came.  
  
“Obi-Wan. It’s been a long time, my old master.” The more Piett heard his master speak in his own voice, with its Upper-Core speech pattern and Outer-Rim accent, the more breathless and dizzy wanted to feel, but this was neither the time nor the place. They needed to deal with the Jedi first.  
  
Kenobi came stand where Lord Vader had been. Piett moved to stand by his master’s side. Their hands remained joined, which Kenobi definitely noticed.  
  
“So you do know each other?”  
  
“Admiral Firmus Piett has been one of the greatest force against corruption in the military and bane to the scourge of the galaxy for most of his adult life.”   
  
Piett could not judge what the expression on Lord Vader’s face meant but it put him ill at ease. His tone almost dared Kenobi to argue with him. “You don’t believe him,” he challenged.  
  
Kenobi spared him only a glimpse, “Anakin, it’s not that I’m ungrateful towards your friend for drawing you out of your - altered meditative state, but you must forgive me for disbelieving but visions are one thing but you want us to believe you and this young man have been sent back from who knows how many years into the future?” Kenobi retorted. “People become one with the Force when they pass, my Padawan, they don’t get sent back in time.”  
  
“Maul is still alive. If you can call the state he is currently in, living,” Lord Vader replied curtly.  
  
Kenobi paled. “What do you mean he is alive? _I cut him in half_.”  
  
“And his hatred for you knows no bounds. It leant him such strength in the Dark Side, he yet lives to seek his revenge.”  
  
“Revenge?”  
  
“When he learned you had a history with Satine Kryze, Duchess of Mandalore - and murdered her in front of you. It would have happened in the next four to five years.”  
  
Kenobi looked utterly shaken to the core. “Would have?”  
  
“He’s currently residing on Lotho Minor, and utterly insane. Now you know that you have the power to change the future,” Lord Vader responded. “And at the same time it should prove well enough that the Admiral and I speak the truth.”  
  
-*-  
  
“And he told you Maul lives?”  
  
“Yes, on Lotho Minor. I sensed only truth in his words, Masters.”  
  
“This claim should be investigated immediately,” Windu declared.  
  
“Agree, I do. What else your Padawan had to say, Knight Kenobi?” said Master Yoda.  
  
“He said that Admiral Firmus Piett has been one of the greatest forces against corruption in the military that he knew. And a bane to the scourge of the galaxy - for most of his adult life,” Kenobi answered. “They appear to be very close. Anakin took his hand and Piett kissed it. And neither let go.”  
  
“An attachment, you think?”  
  
“A strong bond, Master Yoda.” His answer was met with disappointed shaking of heads.  
  
“Hmm. See this for ourselves, we will.”  
  
“He supports the young man’s claim of being from the future?” asked Ki-Adi-Mundi.  
  
“The way he greeted me - Master’s, it was truly as though he’d genuinely not seen me in years. And the way he spoke.” Kenobi paused to let out a heavy breath. “The way he spoke Masters - he sounded like he was nobility but he still has his Tatooinian accent. I don’t know what to make of it.” Neither did the Council it seemed.  
  
The sound of a chime letting them know someone waited outside the chamber doors eased the strained silence. A senior Padawan came with a message - Chancellor Palpatine was come to visit Anakin, and he was very concerned that he’d only just now hear something was ailing _his favourite young man_.  
  
“This is the last thing we need,” sighed Windu.


	6. Mindscape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas all!

Lord Vader sensed _him_ as soon as he entered the temple, but as familiar as the feel of him was, it was also unlike anything he’d felt from him before. The secret lusts, unrestrained passion and wild submission¹ he felt at the approach of his Sith Master aboard the second Death Star weren’t present. Instead he felt plain disgust, tempered hatred and the urge to rebel. His blood ran cold, his pulse raced and his breathed as though he’d just ran a marathon.  
  
“My Lord?” Piett’s gentle voice drew him quickly from his tumultuous thoughts. Vader squeezed his hand gently and finally let it go before standing.  
  
“The Emperor approaches,” he answered, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders as he moved back to view the cityscape. He turned away from it just as quickly. “Come here.” Piett approached without hesitation. “I’m going to shield your mind, lest he, or any of them, learn too much.” Piett nodded his consent.  
  
It was meant to have been a simple task, or as simple as something so complex as a mind-shield could be.   
  
_He was so warm, so comfortable, he didn't want to move. He felt as though he was lying on a cloud, and the sheet covering had such a pleasant weight to it. But something like an itch in the back of his mind told him to wake up, to open his eyes. With great reluctance he did, only to find the comfortable weight covering him was his cloak._  
  
Except it wasn't. Certainly it was armourweave, but it was a sheet, not a cloak.  
  
Reaching out, he found the sheet beneath him was armourweave too. Even the pillowcases.  
  
Armourweave bedding. Either someone felt the need to protect themselves even while they slept, or had wealth of a ridiculous degree.   
  
None of that explained how he had come to be sleeping in this bed though. How had he been sleeping at all? The suit would not allow for easy rest, and he felt so oddly well rested. Like he hadn't been in years. And lighter than he'd ever felt.  
  
Felt. He could feel. He felt the armourweave with his hands. His right arm, the first limb he'd lost, was fully intact. His skin he discovered then was utterly unmarred, and utterly naked.  
  
But he knew that already, didn't he? That something was different and so was he. He found himself distracted before he could think to question it further.  
  
He felt the pull of something which drew him to leave the bed. Beneath his feet he found a floor of durasteel, midnight black but warm to the touch. The room was lain out not dissimilar to the VIP quarters on the Executor but the decor was off. The furnishings weren't of some tacky Core world style, but neat, and tasteful, crafted of durasteel, plastisteel and woodoo hide. The lighting, and several furnishings and accessories were made of finely crafted obsidian. There was a fireplace, a miniature of his mediation chambers, and either side sat the chairs which would typically be inside.   
  
There was a theme, and the theme was him.  
  
The window, when he turned to look behind him, was straight off of the Executor's bridge. And beyond it, an ecumenopolis unlike any other - quiet and calm, with a strong appearance of being very well organised.  
  
He moved towards it, to take in the view better. Confronted with such a prospect, the itch returned, and tried to grow into a thought but a sense of déjà vu overtook it.  
  
Hadn’t he just been doing this? Looking out this very window? Or was it looking out upon this view? Somehow the two didn’t seem to line up.  
  
“Mmm. You look beautiful, my Lord.” Upon the armourweave bed, his second-in-command looked at him with lust on his youthful countenance. But wasn’t he meant to be older? He was an Admiral after all. Whatever the answer was it didn’t seem to matter, not when he was looking at him so.  
  
"Come back to bed." Lord Vader felt all too happy to obey the command.   
  
Crawling onto the bed and into the others arms feels as natural as it does alien. He feels like they've done this before but knows they haven't.  
  
Still, he finds himself asking, "What is this place?"  
  
"I don't know what you mean, my Lord." Piett reached out to touch him, and he finds it hard to resist. Near forgets himself when Piett bites down on his clavicle. He reached out himself to take the other man's head in his hands meaning to force the Admiral to focus but found himself instead planting a searing kiss upon his Admiral's eager mouth.  
  
He found himself manhandled gently until he was splayed diagonally across the bed pinned there by hands and mouth until he was unwilling to fight.   
  
It all felt, oh, so good.  
  
In no time at all he found himself with one hand clutching at sheets, the other on the baseboard, his legs hooked over the others, Piett moving within him at a steady rhythm, words of encouragement pouring from his lips until they were both reduced to letting only the most breathless sounds escape them.  
  
"We've never done that before."  
  
"What are you talking about, my Lord? Passion is no excuse for ill-preparation, and you were still more than ready from our last round," Piett replied with a smirk on his mouth and a twinkle in his eyes.  
  
Before the feeling of newness this their intimacy just wouldn't go away. "We've never done this before because I couldn't. I never tried, never wanted to." He could feel the truth in his words.  
  
"What do you -" Piett paused and brought a hand to his face. "I can feel you. You're touching my face. I can see you too. Like double-vision."  
  
"I know. I was - I was meant to do something," Vader frowned, and outside the window storm clouds began to gather. Purple lightning lashed out at the buildings as a rolling sea swept in along the streets and avenues.   
  
And in the room, which was made of him, butterflies, glowing white with auras of blue gathered.  
  
"What's happening?" Piett clung to him fearfully.  
  
"This is me. My mind and yours, they're merging. I apologise, Admiral. I lost focus," he said seriously. With some focus, he reeled in the storm and the seas, though the butterflies remained.  
  
"This isn't real?" Piett shifted to look where their bodies were still joined. He moved to pull away further but Vader's hand stopped him.  
  
"Just because this happened in our head does not mean it isn't real," his voice was full of promises. The butterflies fluttered as though they were in agreement. "But we cannot stay like this. The risks are too great."  
  
"You were going to shield my mind."  
  
"Yes. Your mind is so quiet and orderly, he might have entered it with ease."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"You have no reason to be. To have such a mind is a rare dynamic. And the perfect place to lay a trap," he assured Piett.  
  
"What kind?"  
  
"When I was very new to the Jedi Order, I went with my peers to a fair. There was a hall of mirror, which the found quite frightening, and disorientating. I shall hide your mind in a hall of mirrors.  
  
The scenery changed as he spoke and they found themselves on an intersection in Piett's ecumenopolis. Unlike the others, this corner had identical building on all corners. "Here, I'll show you how to get through." He took Piett but the he's and showed him which mirrors, each playing a different obscure scene, to follow. They repeated the journey several times until Piett could do it with his figurative eyes closed.  
  
"I must go now. I don't know how long it’s been, but I fear it might have been too long."  
  
"Must you go?"  
  
"Minds are not meant to be joined in such a way, for so long. It's too easy to become lost. Or merged. Especially with minds so easily compatible as ours." He was already pulling away and fading out of Piett's mindscape. Piett reached out hoping to stop him. His hand closed around one of the butterflies instead.  
  
“You shouldn’t have done that,” were the first words out of Vader’s mouth. He did not remove his hands from the others face.  
  
“You’ll just have to come back in and get it,” Piett countered with ease, teasing his lips over a palm.  
  
Someone cleared their throat.


	7. Escape

Kenobi, the entire Jedi Council, the man who would-be Emperor and a number of his entourage had somehow managed to squeeze into Lord Vader's hospital room. How they could have convinced themselves that so many being in Lord Vader’s presence was something just to be carelessly overlooked, was beyond Piett. If they were going to escape now, they'd have to go out the window.  
  
' _I will take that under consideration_ ', he heard Lord Vader say, although his lips did not move.  
  
"Anakin, my boy. What is going on? Who is this young man?" It was almost, _almost_ possible to think this mild-mannered servant of the common good couldn't possibly be the same, disfigured Emperor who hid himself beneath black robes. He certainly had the Jedi fooled with his wide-eyed concern. Piett felt the muscles of his master’s back tensed beneath his palms.   
  
“This is _Admiral_ Firmus Piett,” the bald Jedi introduced him with reluctance.  
  
“Admiral, you say. Well, I’m sorry for sounding dubious, but aren’t you a little young to be an Admiral?” Palpatine gave his best smile, but it didn’t truly conceal his scoffing tone.  
  
Those muscles almost began to vibrate with every word the Chancellor spoke. Piett felt his master’s need to escape form and rise. He was more than prepared when Lord Vader followed through with his suggestion.  
  
The sound of a snap-hiss and a flash of purple light were immediately followed by cries of horror, fear and surprise but they were quickly lost to the wind as they plummeted down the outside of the ziggurat. Not for one moment did Piett feel the need to tense at what might come next. Lord Vader’s display of his gifts in the Force were on full display and he felt safe in his arms. Piett only needed to keep a firm hold.  
  
Lord Vader landed and jumped them several times until they reached the front of the temple. Even the Jedi temple guards were unprepared when the pair suddenly dropped from above onto the stairs. Tourists had little time to spot them before they were gone again in a blur, the purple light disappearing.  
  
Lord Vader needn’t even ask where Piett’s ship was hidden. Piett could almost fell the butterfly in his hands. They were connected now, all because of that. Even once they were safely hidden on ‘The Lady Ex’ his master did not bring up the subject of the creatures return.  
  
“I chose to continue in your service, my Lord,” Piett answered the earlier question. He understood now Lord Vader had grand plans for the future and the Empire. Ideas with which the Sith Lord had once tortured himself with. The what-ifs and maybe’s on has when they have many regrets.  
  
Now was an opportunity, to rarest in all the galaxy: to make them a reality.  
  
“Where to, my Lord?”  
  
“Naboo.”


	8. Intentions

The Emperor’s homeworld was not what Piett had expected their first destination to be, and Lord Vader’s reason for going there not what he had presumed.  
  
Naboo, Piett learned had been where the war had truly begun some ten years earlier, during the reign of Queen Padme Amidala, not the Galactic Senator for Naboo. Those ten years earlier Naboo had been blockaded by the Trade Federation over a despite regarding taxes. The truth however was that Naboo had been chosen by Palpatine as a testing ground for the Trade Federation’s droid army, a test to discern how the Galactic Senate would react to such a crisis, and the means by which Sheev Palpatine had gotten himself placed in the ultimate position of power as Supreme Chancellor.  
  
It was certain future events surrounding Senator Amidala which would be the catalyst by which the Clone Wars would begin.   
  
But there were things to be done as they journeyed towards her. Lord Vader had been inspired by Piett’s early seizure of funds that were, and would have been used for criminal pursuits. And there was nothing more criminal than war mongering. In faraway Kamino, millions of clone soldiers were weeks away from the war which would be names for them, and years away from the mass murdering of their Jedi brothers and sisters.   
  
At the Kuat Drive Yards and their subsidiaries, and in dozens of droid factories, weapons of war had been and continued to be created enmasse. And on Geonosis, the greatest technological terror the galaxy would never know was nothing more than a holoprint.  
  
And Lord Vader knew the codes knew the codes and identifications for all of it. Not even the secret accounts set aside to pay for it all were out of his realm of knowledge. He had been forced to listen for years to his Sith master’s boasting. Been made to study his master’s genius. Now Lord Vader would have his revenge. There was an army and an Empire just waiting for them. They’d need only reach out to take it.  
  
But first he sent the order to have the Clone’s dechipped - Lord Vader would not command an army of slaves -   
  
\- never again -  
  
They, along with everyone else, would be given the freedom to choose.


	9. Chapter 9

Naboo hung in the darkness of space like a glass marble, swirled with blue and green and painted with feathery streaks of white clouds. It was visually one of the most beautiful worlds Piett had ever seen.  
  
_So why was it causing Lord Vader such palpable anxiety to look upon it_? His master glistened with a cold sweat.  
  
They had arrived several minutes earlier, just outside of planetary sensors range, but close enough that a pre-recorded message in regards to a new wardrobe for Lord Vader reached them. Piett had wondered as they had travelled what his master would chose to dress himself in, now he had the choice available to him. It seemed a ridiculous thought now, given Lord Vader’s reaction to the planet, those clothes might never be received.   
  
“My Lord?” Lord Vader sharply inhaled. “My Lord, are you well?”  
  
“I haven’t seen her in almost twenty-five years.” His voice was barely audible. “Only ten for her. But how different those years have been,” he added more clearly.  
  
It wasn’t the planet, it was a person upon it. Piett had to wonder, “Who, my Lord?”  
  
“Padme Amidala.” The name sounded somewhat familiar but he could say when or where he had heard it before.  His master’s continued response kept him from any attempt at recollection. “How she’s haunted me all these years. She’s never not been with me, since the day we met.” Those were lovers’ words if Piett had ever heard any.  
  
“You loved her?” It was he now who spoke quietly.  
  
“Since I was nine years old.” Lord Vader turned to look at him. He must have seen something in Piett’s expression or sensed something from him. “It is you, Firmus Piett, not she, who accompanies on this journey now. By the will of the Force.”  
  
He had no right to be jealous, and yet he was. “Is she really so important to history?”  
  
“She might have destroyed Sheev Palpatine with her words alone. A two-minute speech by Padme Amidala did put back his plans by months - and on more than one occasion. She founded the Rebellion before the Empire ever existed. Gave the order to keep to the shadows, to make a show of supporting the Empire until they could grow great enough in strength to take it on,” he elaborated. “She’s an ally we’re going to need. If we can convince her to come around to our way of thinking.”  
  
“Is she the mother of Luke Skywalker?” he found himself blurting suddenly.  
  
Lord Vader smiled sadly, “Yes. She was. Of Luke, and his twin sister.”  
  
“A sister?! Who?”  
  
“I do not know. I sensed his fear for her, but nothing more. I have no clue as to the identity of my daughter,” Lord Vader said sadly. “But that is in my past, and likely never to be in my future. All I can do now is make the future I would have like for them.” Lord Vader removed himself to the pilots seat and engaged the thrusters, speeding them towards the planet.  
  
Piett did not know what to think, or feel. The instinct to be jealous was beneath him. To be prejudiced of this woman before he’d even made her acquaintance was of no service to himself or to Lord Vader. She had to be a worthy being, to have a man such as Lord Vader be so devoted to her. To have had him love her, to make her the mother of his children and to still be in his heart after so many years.   
  
His wonderment of Padme Amidala was somewhat cooled as he sat himself down in the co-pilots seat and received a small but warm smile from his master lips.   
  
But oh, how he wished for so much more.

**Author's Note:**

> For my lovelies on the Pieder Discord: my attempt at filling the time travel prompt. 
> 
> If you like to join us: https://discord.gg/XxNkxyP


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